09/18/2026
Psychosocial risk management is becoming a compliance obligation, not just a wellness aspiration.
As of October 2025, Quebec employers must identify, assess, and eliminate work-related psychosocial risks under Bill 27. Now WorkSafeBC has opened public consultation on similar requirements for British Columbia, a move the industry is calling one of the most significant expansions of provincial OH&S authority in a generation.
If adopted, this would reshape how employers manage many aspects of the work environment and interactions, including but not limited to workload and job demands, autonomy and control, role clarity, work-life balance, psychological and social support, leadership practices, workplace relationships, and exposure to traumatic events.
WorkSafeBC's justification is straightforward: unmanaged psychosocial hazards produce psychological injury, and the claims data bears this out. Accepted psychological injury claims in BC have climbed steadily, from roughly 419 a year before 2015 to 2,613 in 2025, a more than fivefold increase (WorkSafeBC, via Victoria News) and claims cost has soared to $298 million in 2025 (Global News).
The harder question isn't whether the legislation will pass. It's whether employers, in BC and across Canada, are ready for a broader shift in what it means to provide a safe workplace.
Despite a substantial body of evidence linking unaddressed psychosocial hazards to productivity loss, stress, burnout, trauma, and long-term disability, the incentive to act early has historically been weak. Psychosocial risk management tends to compete for attention with cost, timelines, and more immediate operational pressures, and change might not come for many until legislation, litigation, or losses make it unavoidable.
Unfortunately, waiting for the law to compel action often means building compliance systems under deadline pressure rather than by design, all the while absorbing years of preventable harm and losses along the way.
The better question is no longer, “Are we required to address psychosocial risk?” It is, “What is the cost of waiting until we are?”
